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Hard Drive Problems

N

nwahs000

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 3, 2004
Messages
125
So my cousin had a laptop and they were painting a room and they were using the laptop for music so they covered it up so they wouldn't get paint on it and it overheated and fried the hard drive. I tried to access the drive but no luck.They are thinking of sending it to one of those data recovery services? They want to recover their daughters first year pictures. Does anybody have any experience with any of these companies?

TIA
 
Try some freeware or trial-based file recovery software first. You may luck out and find what you're looking for, all while saving some money (for a new hard drive) in the process.

One such program is call Recuva. More programs like it can be found with a simple Google search.
 
I'd try imaging the drive first, acronis is easy to use. You could also use UBCD4WIN and use driveimagexml. After imaging the drive then try the recovering the files, that way you have an image an if needed you can install it on a new drive, depending on the damage to the original.
 
Look up EasyRecovery Professional, I used that to recover most of my files from a similar disaster a while ago.
 
I appreciate all the suggestions, but I have a question. With all of these programs, don't I need to be able to access the drive. See when I took the laptop hard drive and I put it in a laptop enclosure to hook up to my PC. My desktop would read it for a second and then not. Any further suggestions are definatly appreciated.
 
The recovery program may be able to "read" data that your normal OS can't.

It's always best to hook the drive directly to a MB port rather than thru a USB enclosure but ya gotta work with what ya got. ;)

I always recommend GetDataBack because you can try the software and see if it's going to work in your situation before you buy it.
 
So if I want to directly connect my laptop drive to my desktop do I need a special cable since I don't think the laptop hard drive is IDE?
 
nwahs000 said:
So if I want to directly connect my laptop drive to my desktop do I need a special cable since I don't think the laptop hard drive is IDE?
Click to expand...

A SATA 2.5" HD, like the one you have for a laptop, will plug directly into a MB port with the same cables as a regular 3.5" HD.

If it's a 2.5" IDE HD, an adapter like this would be the ticket.

PS. I just wanted to add, all of our suggestions only apply if the drive is spinning up. If it's "frozen"/dead or won't spin-up, none of the programs is gonna help.

For a "dead" drive, you could try the hard drive freezer trick but that's a last resort.
 
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I think I tried to plug it in to a standard IDE and it didn't match up, so I'm assuming I need that extra connector that you are referenceing?
Click to expand...

Yep, you have a 2.5" IDE drive and to connect it directly to the MB, you will need an adapter like the one I linked.

Go ahead and try Getdataback with your enclosure but it's always better to be connected directly to the MB.

PS........A data recovery place will start at @ 500.00.
 
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